#phoenixwithahoardoflibraries

So, I was reading your latest ask about Tori, the one where season 1 stays on track and Alastor tricks Vox into donating his magic without revealing why he wants such a donation. And little things just kept occurring to me about what that chain of events would require.

Like Tori not encountering the spy watch, which in turn either requires her to not have a nightmare that night or to deal with it differently, perhaps by trying to get back to sleep on her own somehow. (Or maybe getting up and staying awake for about 20 minutes so she doesn’t fall back into the nightmare when she goes back to sleep. It actually works, by the way, so long as you can keep your body from waking up too much to make it difficult to get back to sleep. Actually getting out of the bed can help keep you from falling back asleep too soon, or forcing yourself to lie awake until you’re not risking the nightmare.) Or Alastor reaching her and the watch sooner. And Tori experiencing the events of the final extermination, with whatever that involves. (Is she evacuated to Cannibal Town and her Aunt Rosie ahead of the battle? Or stuck in the hotel when it’s literally cut in two? I tend to think option one, if only because Alastor is unwilling to risk her any more than he has to and probably also doesn’t want Vox to catch her on camera.) And Tori still living in the hotel with its new surge of guests at the beginning of season 2. How would that go, I wonder? Would Alastor introduce her to the other guests, or ask the core original staff to keep their mouths shut (possibly binding them with a deal so they couldn’t give her existence away, thus explaining why Vox can’t get it out of Angel)? And with her dad increasingly vulnerable?

And watching her dad “quitting” after that argument with Lucifer. Which, actually, I’m the most curious about - if he quits, wouldn’t he say they were getting ready to move out? Or maybe he tells her to start packing while he goes and “arranges their next living arrangements”, i.e. has a chat with Rosie without her there? Would she just be - stuck at the hotel, with Husk and Nifty’s last orders being to protect her and keep her safely hidden, and Tori herself instructed to wait there until Alastor could come pick her up? Only to see the broadcast? Seriously, I’m curious. Thoughts please? 

(Response: centuryberry, here! My response to this ask/submission by @phoenixwithahoardoflibraries is down below!)

@phoenixwithahoardoflibraries

I have actually never been asked this before! And as a matter of fact, I do have someone in mind.

I’ve been using Sun Anke as a face reference for Hairong.

Hmm... let's see

For Soulmate AU: Briar (and the others in Alexis' Quincy 'unit') might show up once we get to the Quincy lands themselves, and maaaaybe Erich's mother? I'll have to see how the story plays out in the final few chapters to say for sure.

for Okami AU: absolutely! they've already had a brief mention (Briar and the others were in the pack of wolves that Erich ran with in the very beginning) and as soon as they get back to Quincy lands, they'll have actual speaking parts.

tagging @angelrider13  @phoenixwithahoardoflibraries

Rain, in Galahd, was always welcome. Was seen as a mark of Ramuh’s presence - Ramuh, the patron of the islands, the Old Man of Galahd. Ramuh, who held the lightning in one fist and the thunder in the other; Ramuh, who was the Storm. Ramuh, who walked among his people, who shared their griefs and hardships, their joys and celebrations. 

It was raining, in Insomnia. That was scant comfort. But at least Ramuh was there. 

It was always good to have one’s kin at a funeral. 

Five. Five members of the Kingsglaive, five galahdians with beads in their hair and the memory of the islands echoing in their dreams. Five members of the King’s Military who had been given full honors for their ‘valor and their sacrifice’.  Five empty chairs, five vacant lockers, five spots to be filled - five sacrifices to the meat grinder of war. 

(At least they’d been given back the bodies for the pyre. At least their kin hadn’t been locked in cold earth and rock - at least they’d been able to give their comrades that much.)

Rain, in Insomnia, was always welcome. Although now, it tasted suspiciously of salt. 

(Rain was a mark of the Fulgarian, yes, but to those who remembered the sight of storms howling across the sea, of rain lashing the waves to merge seamlessly with the rising swell - the Fulgarian was the Storm, but the Hyrdrean was the Sea, was water in all its sundered forms). 

“Must I accept the barren Gift? -learn death, and lose my Mastery? Then let them know whose blood and breath will take the Gift and set them free: whose is the voice and whose the mind to set at naught the well-sung Game- when finned Finality arrives and calls me by my secret Name.”

The song was plaintive, set in a minor key, but it wove through the pounding rain and made it a part of the melody. 

Thalassa was there at the edge of the crowd, hair plastered to her back, eyes far too old with the heavy weight of memories and regret as they shone like pale gold in her wet face. And her voice rose again in aching harmony as she slid into the next stanza.

“Not old enough to love as yet, but old enough to die, indeed- -the death-fear bites my throat and heart, fanged cousin to the Pale One's breed.”

And then her voice shifted. It was sad, yes - but it waved the sadness like the banner. It was a sadness that bared its teeth at a universe that had done all it could - but you were still alive. 

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH

IS THAT A GOOD NOISE OR A BAD NOISE

I'd be curious to see Ravus getting ahold of some of Styx's writings, and reading them aloud to annoy Gentiana and Luna. 

Oh wow, that is hilarious and he would.

Ravus stumbles upon the published works by accident on the Eos version of JStor and basically falls in love, he prints them into a book to give to Luna for her birthday and quotes from them constantly.

He’s especially fond of the scathing commentary of the role of the Oracle and their death in the prophecy of the Chosen King. He may or may not have that one saved on his phone.

And Ravus spends so much time quoting them that eventually Ardyn overhears him and decides to look them up.

Say, would some of Styx's fellow academics counter her ideas with pointing to the Oracle's powers and the Chosen King as examples of Bahamut and Shiva's service? 

Oh, they almost certainly would.

How to manage Ardyn Izunia as your boss, 101 (for the happiness, safety, and sanity of everyone in the workplace)

There’s also a secondary presentation: So You Found Yourself Semi-Adopted By Your Boss, What Now?

Ardyn has a habit of taking all of his outcast employees under his wing.  Mostly to their benefit, but it can unnerve people that he remembers minute details about their lives only mentioned once, and even knows about problems before you tell him.